Big fall out - who is (most) in the wrong?

[Dibrew]

I would welcome opinions on this situation which is currently playing out.

Person A is a masseuse, working part time evenings out of a leisure centre attached to a secondary school.

Person A told Person B that she had terminated a session with the male partner of Person C. Person A doesn’t know Person C, but she knows Person B is friends with them.

Person B tells Person C of what was said by Person A. The session was terminated due to him offering money towards the end of this for sexual services.

Person C’s partner strongly denies this. Person C accuses Person A of breaking data protection rules and says Person B is attempting to shit stir.

Em, yeah, obviously. Did you read the post I was (sarcastically) replying to?!

That reads like “because she was a masseuse she should expect to be sexually harassed and so should have just overlooked what the sleazy man said”. No one should be expected to handle sexual harassment in any job and people will react how they react.

I mean, on one level I want to agree with everyone who is condemning the creep because, of course, the alleged behaviour is not okay.

But on another hand I am just totally OVER women being portrayed as helpless traumatised victims by default. As far as I can tell, the bloke asked for a hand job, and she kicked him out of his session.

Maybe she laughed derisively in his face and found the whole incident so pathetic as to be hilarious!

Maybe she read him the riot act and sent him packing with short shrift.

Maybe (just maybe) his version is true and she fancied the pants off him, tried to seduce him and this is her cover story!

I’m not saying she isn’t totally traumatised by the horrible man (of course, she might be) but do we really have to assume that it’s definitely the case? Given the lack of info to the contrary, why not consider a more empowered hero / antihero role for her in this story, rather than just a hapless victim. We are feminists here after all, are we not?

Sexually harassed by a small dog on wheels ??? Now that would be a new story 😂😂🐶

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Incorrect. You can tell Sue all you like. Unless you’d signed an NDA, which were widely condemned for such purposes during the whole MeToo campaign. Remember that campaign? Where women spoke account against inappropriate behaviour by men? Anyone?! Otherwise you have zero duty of confidentiality towards the sexual harasser.

She can talk about it to anyone she likes and for any purpose - whether it’s because she’s deeply traumatised and in need of support, or not traumatised but wanting to warn someone who also knows the creep, or to laugh about the pathetic man that thought she’d be willing to touch him sexually for £50. So, good news, we don’t need to assume she’s traumatised by the sleazebag to still shout from the rooftops that she owes this man zero confidentiality and zero “professionalism” (🙄).

Although she might have been completely freaked out and shaken up and needed to confide in a friend. As a PT, if a man who was a client did that it's creep me massively and I'd likely need a friend to talk to.

Ultimately I don't think anyone should turn on anyone, with the exception of everyone directing their ire at Person CS DH who sounds like a complete sleazebag!

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Person A shouldn't be discussing her clients with anybody else, and certainly not in this way. Nobody else outside her business should know who her clients are, unless the leisure centre need that info to manage bookings etc, then client information can be shared for that purpose. If she is HCPC registered, and the partner of C makes a complaint, then she will have breached confidentiality by telling someone outside her business/connected with her business that he is/was her client.

If she is working self employed and independently, she has the right to refuse to offer services to a customer for pretty much any reason. If she believes the male partner of C poses a risk to other staff working there, she could have a confidential conversation with the leisure centre manager where she rents a space regarding his behaviour. She should not be gossiping about it with her mates.

As grim as it is unless you can back it up with proof she should keep her mouth shut

what’s to say she doesn’t offer happy endings he didn’t want one and then she panicked thinking he’d tell everyone and she got in there 1st

Your post is what is grim here. No proof so keep quiet?! Does that apply to victims of rape or historic child sex abuse too? If not, where is the line? And that’s before your final statement…

This thread is an absolutely chilling insight into how much abuse women are supposed to cover up for predatory men.

If it helps at all, there is no data protection case here.

I don't believe for a second that the masseuse made it up because he spurned her advances as someone suggested. 🙄
She obviously thought she was doing the man's wife a favour letting her know. The wife will probably realise one day it's true when he looks elsewhere for sex.

The problem is it’s been turned into idle gossip via a friend of a friend which then devalues

Reporting it to the centre manager would be far more effective

She can report it to her superiors and speak to her friends about it.

They’re not mutually exclusive actions.

Are you A, B, C or even D?

Yes there is. She literally disclosed the personal details of one of her clients to someone who had no right to that information.

If he did ask her for sexual services that is of course gross and disgusting. However wrong his actions, she still does not have the right to reveal the identities of her clients outside of her own business and those associated with it who have a lawful reason to process that data. Or if she were to be reporting a client to the police for an offence against her, or breaching confidentiality due to risk of immediate harm to self or others. Her mate doesn't fall into any of those categories.

Doesn’t she? Can you point to why she doesn’t? It was a massage not an appointment to discuss confidential medical issues covered under the doctors code of ethics. If I work at a gym and you walk in and I say to a friend later that crazygoatlady was here she really likes to pick on people, I’m not in breach of anything. If you were a man who made a sexual proposition to me while I was in a small room with you I’d bloody well tell people, including my manager.

I'd say that it depends on if the masseuse was gossiping about it or if she was distressed/upset.
Ultimately she shouldn't have told anyone but I'm sure if I was in that position I'd have said, fuck off you dirty bugger and then would have probably had a grin about it with a friend 🤷🏼‍♂️

You are wrong.

Client confidentiality still applies if you are a massage therapist. You are bound by GDPR the same as any other professional. All of the relevant professional bodies such as the sports therapy association, federation of holistic therapies etc, all make this clear. It is a common misconception that GDPR and confidentiality doesn't apply outside of healthcare and other regulated professions. It applies to all organisations.

If you were an employee of an organisation and you told your manager that a client had been a sleaze with you, you are not breaching confidentiality because your manager works for the same organisation and the client is the organisation's client, not yours. So yes, you can say whatever you like about clients to your manager, within reason, because they can request their personal data or notes at any time if it's been written down anywhere. The right to make a subject access request.

If you are self employed, you still can't tell people outside your business who your clients are. I mean, OK, you can - you can say what you want, until the client finds out you were talking about them.

It may be justifiable to send other massage therapists in your local network a confidential warning email about a predatory client, as that could be justified as protecting others from serious harm. The same would go for informing a manager/landlord where you rent a space. You can seek support from friends, colleagues, etc, without revealing identities.

Telling your mate who knows his wife, however, is not in any way justified and if the client finds out, he absolutely will have a case to cite a GDPR breach. And it is a shame to give reprehensible men any sort of way to paint themselves as the victim, would you not think?

I am not changing my mind but will try to explain it so you can understand. She can tell someone for sure. But telling the person she chose was unwise. If all she wanted was to tell someone, she could have chosen someone with no link to anyone involved. By telling B, she showed poor judgement and should have known better.

If she deliberately chose B expecting B to tell C, she has no right to be angry at B for actually doing this.

I do hope you can understand now.

The OP didn’t say A was angry. It’s C that is angry.

Person A has the right to be safe at work and not be sexually harassed and treated as though she’s a sex worker by person C’s disgusting DH.

Person C is obviously desperate to hold on to her lying wannabe cheat of a DH.